Murdoc continues to be very busy, but the developments in Georgia are quite troubling.
The Georgians claim to have shot down four Russian planes and the Russians, who have been building up troop strength for a while, are apparently pouring in.
As much as Murdoc would love to knee-jerk blame the Rooskies for everything, the border areas of the former USSR are all basically a mess. And local disputes can go regional in a day and regional disputes can go continental in a week.
Bram tips Murdoc off to this bad news: Georgia Pulls Out Troops from Iraq amid 'Russian Aggression'
President Saakashvili said Georgia was pulling out its troops from Iraq amid, what he called, an open military aggression by Russia in South Ossetia.
"One brigade of the Georgian armed forces is in Iraq and we are calling its back tomorrow," Saakashvili said in a live interview with CNN on August 8.
And get this from the same article:
When asked by an anchor what would he ask to President Bush to do for Georgia, Saakashvili responded, that Georgia now was in the same situation as Finland was in 1939 when the Soviet Union attacked it.
It's hard to know whether that means he wants help like Finland wanted in 1939 or if he means that Georgian troops are going to stand strong against the Russians like the Finns did in 1939. Probably both.
Updated: August 8, 2008 at 2:27 pm
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The Russians had a neat gimmick with this one. They granted Russian citizenship to most of the ethnic Russians in the disputed area. When these people then rebelled, the Russians were obligated to intervene with 'peacekeepers' to protect their 'citizens' from the violence.
I doubt any georgian soldier will break Simo H+
Thank God Georgia is not in NATO. If it were, we would be obligated to go war with a nuclear power. Georgia is just getting similar treatment to the Serbs. It's hard to tell the people of South Ossetia that they can't break away when you encourage the Albanians in Kosovo to do the same.
Victor – Yeah good thing we weren't allied to Czechoslovakia in 1938 or we might have been drawn into a real bad war. Whoa, sleep easy tonight knowing it's someone else's problem. One of our best allies (third largest contingent in Iraq) is about to be eaten by our ancient enemy – thank goodness we aren't obliged to help.
Hey!! That was John, not me! =P
Sorry Victor!